A Love That Cannot Be Abandoned
Not being loved and loving are two separate things. The one who had been forgotten and abandoned countless times dared to hold this conviction with certainty.
Because he had already fallen in love, even if the world abandoned him, he could not abandon the world.
That was why, ten years ago, when he had collapsed beneath the weight of crushing betrayal, he had been unable to let go of the thread connecting him to the world clutched in his hand—no matter what his words claimed—and had moved to close the Gate.
To Deceiver, this was a story far too distant to understand.
“How can you possibly do that?”
“I told you. It’s love. Love isn’t something done in expectation of a reward. Love that seeks compensation isn’t love at all. At least, that’s what I believe.”
remains silent.
Besides, even if the sky had not been the one to steal his heart at first sight, Raven would have eventually come to love the world.
─No.
“Before we even speak of love, there were simply too many things I had received.”
He had to love.
Raven remembered every connection that had brushed past him. There had been many villains among them, but there had been many good people as well.
In a stretch of years too long and lonely for any mere human to bear, he had guarded against madness by letting the malice he received flow away like water while remembering the goodwill and the warmth held within it. He had grown used to quietly tucking away the wounds given by those good people who eventually forgot him, embracing only the warmth they left behind.
He could not love those good people.
In the end, they were simply one of the many ‘decent’ connections that had passed him by. His own vessel was too small to hold and remember them all; it was obvious he would eventually go mad if he tried. Even setting that aside, the majority of them had died by his own hand, so loving them would have been shameless. He could not do it.
Moreover, having forgotten their faces, their voices, and even their builds entirely, what could he possibly claim to love? All he remembered was a blurred, indistinct lump of warmth whose origin had grown hazy.
Yet the child who had never been allowed to become an adult had managed to imitate one, at least a little, based on the warmth he had received from them. Because the collective warmth they had left behind existed here, like this, it was impossible to forget it cleanly as though it had never happened.
So Raven had decided to love the world.
Instead of loving them as ‘people,’ he would love the ‘world’ that had given them the land and sky on which they walked and lived, the ‘world’ that had brought them into being.
It was a kind of duty.
And if I do not love the world, what am I supposed to hold onto in order to keep moving forward?
He swallowed the words he could not bring himself to speak aloud and smiled bitterly.
If he did not love himself and did not love the world either—if he placed value on nothing—what was he meant to look at while walking this path?
This world was the only driving force that moved Raven, his guide, and the safety mechanism that kept him from regretting his reckless choices of the past. There was no way he could discard it.
“Well, that’s why I’m telling you to stop with the pointless suggestions.”
He tilted his head back. The oppressive ceiling filled his entire field of vision.
Then, suddenly, he recalled the strange expectation Deceiver seemed to hold toward him. Not the expectation of him as a tool to complete himself, but something in a different field—….
……Perhaps when you killed my ‘youngest’ disciple, you hoped I would simply take in a new ‘youngest’ without any reaction at all.
That by winning the contest of wills against you, by repeating the cycle of killing and replacing, he had been hoping and guiding Raven to step beyond the bounds of humanity.
He roughly understood where that desire had come from.
“I know my humanity is wearing away. But that doesn’t mean it’s becoming like yours. There is a decisive difference between you and me.”
“…….”
“So stop dreaming your empty dreams and disappear already.”
I’ve had more than enough of your face for today.
Looking at the hand that had stroked Deceiver’s head with open disgust, he clenched and unclenched his fist, then waved the other hand dismissively.
“…….”
“Aren’t you leaving?”
The one who had been standing in silence finally withdrew. The moment he was alone, Raven lay down on the bed, cradling the fainted crow in his arms.
He slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again. A message drifted down across his weary face.
tells me to cherish myself.
“……You really are quick-witted, hyung.”
I was only thinking. I won’t do anything worth worrying about, so you don’t need to pay it any mind.
He chuckled softly, shaking his head, before his face gradually returned to expressionlessness. The situation had been too urgent for him to examine it at the time, but now he needed to go back and pick apart what had been said.
The Guardian Spirit’s name had come up again.
“To narrow the gap in rank and kill me, you will at least need to learn the Guardian Spirit’s name.”
“Only then will the path open.”
He had never expected those words to come from Deceiver’s mouth.
The sense that Deceiver seemed to hope for him to find the Guardian Spirit’s name—was that merely his imagination? Unable to deny the growing sense of unease, he blinked slowly and organized his thoughts.
Now that I think about it, that bastard even gave me the hint that the Guardian Spirit had been an Awakened in his previous life.
He had definitely said it while wearing Didi’s appearance.
“So you kept an unusual Guardian Spirit with you! From the look of it, he seems to have been an Awakened during his lifetime!”
There was no way ‘Deceiver’ had spoken those words for no reason.
He must have given the hint so Raven could find the Guardian Spirit’s name. In fact, before saying that, he had made Raven resolve to find the name by asking for it directly.
At the very least, I now understand that the Guardian Spirit’s name is connected to my rank.
He did not know exactly how they were linked, but according to the bastard, learning the Guardian Spirit’s name would also open a path for his own rank to rise.
Of course, Deceiver might have been lying. But when he considered the bet with Death, the scales tipped toward truth.
Death wants the contract to end quickly so I will die.
The end of the contract meant killing Deceiver.
I wondered why, out of all the possible bet conditions, he chose finding the Guardian Spirit’s name. If this is the reason, it makes sense.
To kill Deceiver, he needed to raise his rank.
So Death, watching Raven’s frustratingly slow progress, must have offered a bet that would benefit him whether Raven won or lost. A bet that could hasten the contract’s end either way.
If Raven lost the bet, the limit on his life extension would be set at ten years.
If Raven won the bet, his rank would rise and he would be able to kill Deceiver.
Yes. The busy Death wouldn’t do anything meaningless.
Raven let out a small, dry laugh.
Yet although he had roughly pieced this much together, he still could not grasp the connection between the Guardian Spirit’s name and the rise in his own rank. What exactly was the correlation?
After thinking for a long time, he called out into the empty air.
“Hyung. If learning your name opens a path for my rank to rise, do you have any idea why that might be?”
remains silent.
“Or even a part you’re allowed to tell me.”
remains silent.
“Yeah. I thought so.”
In the end, he had no choice but to think alone.
Obsessing over it now was unlikely to yield any answers. Raven set the problem with too few clues aside and recalled another part.
Assuming the earlier inferences were true, the part he understood the least.
Death is one thing, but why Deceiver?
Why was Deceiver guiding him to find the Guardian Spirit’s name?
If his rank rose, the moment he finished dealing with the Gate issue he would kill Deceiver and cut off his own life.
There was nothing for Deceiver to gain from Raven raising his rank.
Could he be harboring some absurd dream of raising my rank without killing me and living together in eternal life?
He must know perfectly well that Raven would never do so even if the sky split in two.
He sat up. With the crow resting on his knee, Raven narrowed his eyes in thought, then suddenly lifted his head.
Knock, knock.
The green eyes that had been lost in contemplation shifted sharply.
“Master.”
Liv entered.
It seemed Deceiver had not told her he was leaving separately. The moment she stepped inside, her eyes darted around, searching for the uninvited guest who might still be present. Raven smiled faintly and spoke.
“If you’re going to keep coming in and out like this, why install a feeding slot on the door? It’s meaningless.”
“Oh my, that was obviously a joke. I told you it was just a tantrum, didn’t I? It was only meant to give the feeling of being locked up.”
The others had probably been sincere, though.
Liv, who needed to grow as close to Raven as possible for her own purposes, smiled as though she knew nothing and closed the distance. Only after confirming Deceiver was no longer in the room did she speak again.
“Did the conversation go well?”
“More or less.”
Raven toyed with the crow in his arms.
It had been quiet, so he assumed it was sleeping… but Liv’s expression shifted slightly as she realized it was not simply asleep.
“Did Deceiver… No, never mind.”
Asking whether that bastard had done something would only make the conversation turn awkward no matter the answer. Even if he had committed a wrong, there was nothing Raven could do about it.
She swallowed the words that had nearly escaped and brought up something else.
“More importantly, have you eaten?”
“Not yet. I have no appetite.”
“Ah, then there’s no need to force yourself. If you feel hungry later, please press the button I mentioned before. I’ll prepare a meal for you right away.”
Raven gazed quietly at Liv as she spoke with such warmth.
It had been the same when they first met after his disappearance. To her, whose memories of him had vanished, ‘Raven’ should have been nothing more than a stranger seen only in records, yet she treated him with affection.
There was no way he did not understand the reason.
She hopes I will notice her physical condition or the invisible Sculpted Soul first and tell her about it.
She was probably hoping he would even solve it for her.
However, Raven kept silent as if he noticed nothing. It was a problem he could not touch. He felt sorry for Liv, but it could not be helped.
Still, he could not avoid the topic of Sculpted Soul Masters or Sculpted Souls entirely while talking with her. So he spoke.
“You’re the president of the Sculpted Soul Master Association, aren’t you?”
He had realized his disciples held association president positions long ago. It was obvious who presided over which field without needing to be told.
He recalled the list of ‘presidents’ recited by the slave liberation activist who had come seeking to recruit him.
Awakened Association President, Fighter Association President, Sculpted Soul Master Association President, Shaman Association President.
……Yes. The Sculpted Soul Master Association President.
He smiled with self-mockery.
“You have no idea how surprised I was when I first learned of the Sculpted Soul Master Association’s existence. I’m certain I destroyed that place.”
Liv’s eyes trembled.
“Do you have unpleasant memories of the Sculpted Soul Master Association…?”
“I do.”
“…….”
Her face turned pale. Raven glanced at her and added gently.
“It happened before you were born, so there’s no need to worry about it.”
“Before I was born……”
“At least a hundred and fifty years ago?”
It had been before his contract with Death, so at least that much was certain.
“It’s a story that has nothing to do with you, who has only just turned thirty.”
Even as countless stones of memory were worn away by the current of time until everything grew faint, the memories that stubbornly maintained their existence now asserted their presence as if they had been waiting.
Raven closed his mouth for a moment and looked back on the past.
……It has become an old tale now.
Long ago.
There had been a time when the perception that Sculpted Soul Masters were suitable as slaves was widespread.
Perception held the power to encroach even upon the unconscious, so it did not change easily. Since it was clear that the treatment of ‘Sculpted Soul Masters’ would never improve no matter how much time passed, the old Sculpted Soul Master Association had chosen to erase the very existence of ‘Sculpted Soul Masters’ and go into hiding in order to change that perception.
When people no longer even knew what a Sculpted Soul Master was—when the perception of them had become a blank slate—they would reappear in the world and create a new image.
And so they began gathering every Sculpted Soul Master on the surface.
To achieve their goal, every Sculpted Soul Master had to fall under the association’s control. They persuaded them to join; those who ultimately refused were killed. Children were bought from their parents with money or simply stolen.
A boy with white hair and red eyes had been one of them.
The association assigned value to the Sculpted Souls of the masters they gathered.
They divided the Sculpted Soul Masters according to whether they were useful.
Those whose souls took the form of powerful beasts were treated as outstanding talents and assets. Those whose souls were weak but small or common—easy to slip into places unnoticed—were considered usable. Those whose souls took the form of animals that were both conspicuous and weak were deemed useless and used as disposable tools.
I belonged to the disposable category.
Deon’s Sculpted Soul was a pure white fox.
It was conspicuous yet not strong. Therefore, from a childhood he could barely remember, he had been educated at the association as a card meant to be thrown away. Believing the fake parents the association had provided were real, using their affection as bait, he had been thoroughly confined and raised as a dog for the association.
That was why I was sent to the Abyss.
When enough time had passed that the existence of Sculpted Soul Masters seemed to have vanished from people’s memories, the association recognized that the time had come. They prepared a grand spectacle that would turn ‘Sculpted Soul Masters’ into heroes. Naturally, the groundwork for that show was carried out by the disposable masters.
Deon was no exception.